Archive for the ‘Osama bin Laden’ Category

Younis Al Mauritani, Top Al Qaeda Suspect, Arrested In Pakistan

CHRIS BRUMMITT and ADAM GOLDMAN 09|5|11 – 02:50 PM ET

ISLAMABAD — A battered al-Qaida suffered another significant blow when Pakistani agents working with the CIA arrested a senior leader believed to have been tasked by Osama bin Laden with targeting American economic interests around the globe, Pakistan announced Monday.

Younis al-Mauritani’s arrest – made public six days before the 10-year anniversary of the 9/11 attacks – also point to improved cooperation between two uneasy anti-terror allies after the rancor surrounding bin Laden’s killing.

Al-Qaida has seen its senior ranks thinned since bin Laden was killed May 2 in a raid by U.S. Navy SEALs in Pakistan without the knowledge of local authorities. Atiyah Abd al-Rahman, the terror network’s No. 2, was killed in a CIA missile strike last month.

Pakistan’s unusual public announcement of close cooperation with the U.S. spy agency appeared aimed at reversing the widespread perception that ties between the CIA and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency had been badly damaged by bin Laden’s death. The Pakistanis accused the Americans of violating their sovereignty with the raid, while Washington was angry the terror leader had been found in a house in a military garrison town.

The Pakistani military said the arrest of al-Mauritani and two other Qaida operatives took place near the Afghan border in the southwestern city of Quetta, long known as a base for militants. It did not say when. The arrests were carried out in the past two weeks, according to a U.S. official speaking on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters.

The capture of an al-Qaida operative inside Pakistan has become rare in recent years: most targets of CIA operations in the country have been killed by drone aircraft in a relentless series of operations that started to increase in 2008. His capture is likely to create chaos within al-Qaida: even if he does not reveal compromising information, that possibility is almost certain to force the network to alter plans, move operatives and make a variety of other sudden changes, damaging its ability to carry out attacks.

“This operation was planned and conducted with technical assistance of United State Intelligence Agencies with whom Inter-Services Intelligence has a strong, historic intelligence relationship. Both Pakistan and United States Intelligence agencies continue to work closely together to enhance security of their respective nations,” the military said in a written statement.

Al-Qaida’s center of operations is believed to be in the lawless tribal areas of northwest Pakistan, many hours from Quetta, a large city that is home to both the Taliban’s ruling council and a significant Pakistani military presence.

The statement said al-Mauritani was mainly responsible for al-Qaida’s international operations and was tasked by bin Laden with hitting targets of economic importance in America, Europe and Australia. It said he was planning attacks on gas and oil pipelines, power generating dams and oil tankers that would be hit by explosive-laden speed boats in international waters.

It named the other two detainees as Abdul-Ghaffar al-Shami and Messara al-Shami. In its statement, the Pakistani army also described them as senior operatives.

“This action has dealt yet another blow to al-Qaida and is an example of the longstanding partnership between the United States and Pakistan in fighting terrorism,” White House spokesman Tommy Vietor said. “We applaud the actions of Pakistan’s intelligence and security services that led to the capture of a senior al-Qaida operative who was involved in planning attacks against the interests of the United States and many other countries.”

The U.S. has said it doesn’t know of any specific al-Qaida plot to attack the U.S. ahead of Sept. 11.

The U.S. provided “critical lead information and technical assistance in working with Pakistan” against al-Mauritani, another American official said on condition of anonymity, in order to discuss intelligence. Al-Mauritani is considered “a seasoned, senior operative” trusted by the group’s top leaders, who the U.S. believes “played an absolutely central role in planning and coordinating al Qaeda’s operations in Europe,” with plots that targeted both European and American interests, the official said.

Since the 2001, attacks, Pakistan’s spy agency has cooperated with the CIA to arrest scores of al-Qaida suspects, most of whom were handed over to the United States.

“This reflects how Pakistan and the United States working together can deal an effective blow to the terrorists,” said Pakistan’s ambassador to the U.S., Husain Haqqani. He said the intelligence cooperation had been restored almost to levels prior to a series of U.S.-Pakistan diplomatic clashes.

Many top al-Qaida commanders are still believed to live in Pakistan, and getting Islamabad’s cooperation in cracking down on the network has been a top American goal since 2001. But there have been persistent suspicions that the country was protecting militants. The fact that bin Laden was killed in an army town close to the capital, Islamabad, led to fresh doubts over Pakistan’s commitment.

Michael Vickers, the Pentagon’s under secretary of defense for intelligence, told The New York Times in a recent interview there were perhaps four important al-Qaida leaders left in Pakistan, and 10 to 20 leaders over all in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.

Pak wrests naval base after 17-hr Taliban siege

From : Times of India.

Wreckage of a P-3C Orion aircraft is seen at a major Pakistani naval air base following an attack by militants in Karachi on May 23, 2011. – AFP Photo/ASIF HASSAN

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s security forces regained control of Karachi’s Mehran naval base after a night-long firefight with Taliban militants on Monday, killing four assailants and losing at least 10 of their men in one of the most audacious sieges in that country, lasting 17 hours.

The attackers armed with grenades, rocket-launchers and automatic weapons, swore revenge of “martyrdom of Osama bin Laden” and stormed the base under cover of darkness using ladders and cutting the wire to get into the facility late on Sunday night. Once in, they scattered around the sprawling compound setting off explosions and destroying two US-made PC-3 Orion surveillance aircraft, each worth Rs 162 crore.

Two attackers were shot dead and one blew himself up. While two militants escaped, a third is believed to be lying, possibly dead, under the debris. Among the 17 foreigners at the spot, 11 Chinese aviation trainers were safely evacuated, said Pakistan’s interior minister Rehman Malik.

The Pakistan Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack to avenge bin Laden’s death. “It was the revenge of martyrdom of Osama bin Laden. It was the proof that we are still united and powerful,” Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan told Reuters from an undisclosed location.

The militants made full use of the darkness to keep the security forces engaged all night, hiding in the vast facility ringed with a concrete wall with about five feet of concertina wire on top. Pakistan navy spokesman Irfan-ul-Haq said the militants hid in and fired from an office building until Monday afternoon.

The assault was the worst on Pakistan’s military since a similar raid on Army Headquarters in Rawalpindi in 2009. Terrorists had stormed the headquarters close to Islamabad and held hostages for 22 hours. The attack on the facility raises fresh doubts about the military’s capability to protect its bases and further embarrasses Pakistan’s security establishment following the US raid to take out bin Laden from the northwestern town of Abbottabad on May 2.

Experts slammed the security lapse that led to the attack and feared that the attackers had insider support.

Journalist Nasim Zehra said, “The attack only highlighted the need for the government and military to accept that insiders were facilitating the terrorists.” She said it is impossible for these terrorists to have so much information about aircraft presence on the base without inside help.”

Islamist Militants Attack Pakistan Naval Base

From : Huffington Post.

Fire and smoke rises from a Pakistani naval aviation base, following an attack by militants in Karachi, Pakistan, Sunday, May 22, 2011. (AP Photo/Shakil Adil)

KARACHI, Pakistan — Islamist militants stormed a naval base in the Pakistani city of Karachi late Sunday, destroying a U.S.-supplied surveillance aircraft, firing rockets and battling commandos sent to subdue them in one of the most brazen attacks in years, officials said.

At least four navy personnel were killed and nine wounded in fighting at the Naval Station Mehran, said navy spokesman Irfan ul Haq. The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack as fighting was still reportedly going on Monday morning, saying it was part of their revenge for the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

It was unclear how many militants were killed or wounded. But between 10 and 15 attackers entered the high-security facility before splitting into smaller groups, setting off explosions and hiding in the sprawling facility, Haq said.

“We are receiving fire from different directions,” said another spokesman, Salman Ali.

The coordinated strike rocked the country’s largest city just under three weeks after the May 2 death of bin Laden in a U.S. Navy SEALs raid in the northwest garrison city of Abbottabad, an event al-Qaida-allied extremists in Pakistan have vowed to avenge.

The unilateral American raid triggered a strong backlash against Washington, which is trying to support Pakistan in its fight against militants, as well as rare domestic criticism against the armed forces for failing to detect or prevent the operation. Read details here ….Revenge of Osama ?

Security officials inspect the site following a suicide and bomb attack outside the Frontier Constabulary (FC) headquarter in Shabqadar town, about 30 kilometres north of Peshawar. Pakistan's Taliban on May 13 claimed their first major strike in revenge for Osama bin Laden's death as more than 80 people were killed in a suicide and bomb attack on paramilitary police. –AFP Photo

Twin blasts kill more than 80 in Charsadda, Pakistan.

SHABQADAR: The Tehrik-e-Taliban on Friday claimed their first major strike in revenge for Osama bin Laden’s death as more than 80 people were killed and at least 115 were wounded in a suicide and bomb attack on FC personnel.

“This was the first revenge for Osama’s martyrdom. Wait for bigger attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan,” spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan told AFP by telephone from an undisclosed location.

It was the deadliest attack in the nuclear-armed country this year and came with Pakistan’s military and civilian leadership plunged into crisis over the killing of the al Qaeda chief by US commandos on May 2.

The explosions detonated in the Shabqadar Tehsil of Charsadda, as newly trained FC cadets were getting into buses and coaches for a 10-day leave after a training course, and they were wearing civilian clothes, police said.

Shabqadar is about 30 kilometres north of Peshawar, the main city in the northwest region where militants linked to the Taliban and al Qaeda have repeatedly attacked government forces.

Ahmad Ali, a wounded paramilitary policeman, recalled the horror when the explosions turned a festive Friday morning into a bloodbath.

“I was sitting in a van waiting for my colleagues. We were in plain clothes and we were happy we were going to see our families,” he told AFP by telephone from Shabqadar hospital.

“I heard someone shouting ‘Allah Akbar’ and then I heard a huge blast. I was hit by something in my back shoulder. In the meantime I heard another blast and I jumped out of the van. I felt that I was injured and bleeding.”

Police officials confirmed that more than 80 people had been killed, making it the deadliest attack in Pakistan since November 5 when a suicide bomber killed 68 people at a mosque in the northwest area of Darra Adam Khel.

“The suicide bomber came on a motorcycle and blew himself up among the FC personnel. The bomb disposal squad told me the second bomb was planted,” said the police chief of the Charsadda district, Nisar Khan Marwat.

He said that around 20 shops and 12 vehicles were destroyed in the intensity of the blasts and put the death toll at more than 80.

“Most of those killed are FC cadets. Five dead bodies of civilians were taken to the Shabqadar hospital,” he added.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but the Pakistani Taliban last week threatened to attack security forces to avenge bin Laden’s killing in a US helicopter raid in Abbottabad.

There has been little public protest in support of bin Laden in a country where more people have been killed in bomb attacks in the past four years than the nearly 3,000 who died in al Qaeda’s September 11, 2001 attacks.

But under growing domestic pressure to punish Washington for the bin Laden raid, Pakistan’s civilian government said Thursday it would review counter-terrorism cooperation with the United States.

It was unclear if the move was intended as a threat, but it showed the extent of the task facing US Senator John Kerry as he prepares to embark on a mission to shore up badly strained ties with Washington’s fractious ally.

Washington did not inform Islamabad that an elite team of Navy SEALs had helicoptered into the garrison town of Abbottabad until the commandos had cleared Pakistani airspace, carrying with them bin Laden’s corpse.

The covert night-time raid has plunged Pakistani politics into turmoil with both President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani facing calls to resign.

Pakistanis have been outraged at the perceived impunity of the US raid, while asking whether their military was too incompetent to know bin Laden was living close to a major forces academy, or, worse, conspired to protect him.

Gilani chaired a defence committee meeting that decided “to institute an inter-agency process to clearly define the parameters of our cooperation with the US in counter-terrorism”, an official statement said.

Washington is pressing Islamabad to investigate how bin Laden and several wives and children managed to live for five years under the noses of its military in Abbottabad, just 40 miles north of Islamabad.

Osama bin Laden has warned Al-Qaeda will kill Americans if the mastermind of the 2001 attacks on the United States, Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, is executed, in an audiotape aired Thursday by Al-Jazeera television. – AP (File Photo)

Osama issues fresh threat to US if 9/11 mastermind executed

Simon Black || Alertpak Karachi Desk.

Karachi: World’s most wanted terrorist,Osama bin Laden has warned Al-Qaeda will kill Americans if the self-confessedmastermind of the 2001 attacks on the United States, Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, is executed, in an audiotape aired Thursday ( 25th March, 2010) by Al-Jazeera television.

“The day America will take such decision [to execute Khalid Mohamed and any others] it would have taken a decision to execute whoever we capture,” Bin Laden said in the latest audio record, broadcast on Al-Jazeera.

Osama also said that US president Barack Obama was “following the footsteps of his predecessor”, a reference to George Bush, the former US president.

“The politicians in the White House were practicing injustice against us and still they are. Especially by supporting Israel in its continuous occupation of Palestine.

“They used to think that America across the oceans is protected from the rage of the oppressed until our reaction was loudly heard at your home on the 9/11 with God’s help,” he said in the recording.

Osama’s threat comes as Obama administration has announced it would try Khalid Mohammed and four other accused at a New York courthouse just steps from where the World Trade Centre once stood.

Sheikh Mohammed Khaled and the other accused are detained at Guantanamo as they await trial over the September 11, 2001 attacks that killed close to 3,000 people, most in New York.

Osama bin Laden’s last audio recording was released on January 24, earlier this year in which he claimed responsibility for alleged attempted attack on an airliner on Christmas Day and vowed there would be further attacks on the US unless Obama took steps to resolves the Palestinian situation.

From the above fresh war cry of Al-Qaeda Supremo Bin Laden against the non Muslims of US, it is evident that the mysterious existence of Laden in any unknown place, where-ever in a remote Afghan hide-out or a protected residency in Pak border attached to Afghan territory does not lessen any threat of Al-Qaeda against the non-Muslims of Indian sub-continent, Europe or America. Experts presume various deadly attacks upon the un-warned Non-Muslim and specially Christian people all over the places under the net-work of Al-Qaeda. With a grand population blast of Muslims in Europe and America, the fundamental Muslim groups are increasing their strength to share every foot-step in Britain, Germany, Holland, France, USA, Somalia and Canada. A special net-working has been set up by Al-Qaeda with Teherik-i-Taliban-Pakistan (TTP) and some other Jehadist factions to materialize their Pan-Islamic Jehadi activities from Pakistan, India and UK to finish the non Muslims of Israel, India, US and UK on priority basis. From this point a Jehad or a Crusade is inevitable to destroy the lucratively designed peace process in Afghan or Pak with a growing communal tension, murder, misunderstanding between Muslims, Jews, Christinas and Hindus.

The writer can be contacted at simonblack.pk@gmail.com

The write-up can be used or re-published with due courtesy given to Alertpak blog-site.

A chronology of Osama bin Laden tapes

DUBAI: Osama bin Laden has warned Al-Qaeda will kill Americans if the mastermind of the 2001 attacks on the United States, Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, is executed, in an audiotape aired Thursday on 25th March, 2010 by Al-Jazeera television.

– Oct 7: “America has been hit by Allah at its most vulnerable point, destroying, thank God, its most prestigious buildings.” (Al-Jazeera audiotape, in reference to September 11, 2001 attacks on United States.)

– Dec 13: “We calculated in advance the number of casualties from the enemy who would be killed based on the position of the tower.” (Video said by Washington to have been found by US troops in Afghanistan)

– Dec 27: “Terrorism against America deserves to be praised because it was a response to injustice, aimed at forcing America to stop its support for Israel, which kills our people.” (Al-Jazeera video)

2002

– Jan 31: “The battle has moved to inside America. We will work to continue this battle, God permitting, until victory or until we meet God.” (Al-Jazeera interview)

– Sept 9: “When we evoke the raids on New York and Washington in America , we speak of the men who changed the course of history and cleansed the… filth of treacherous rulers and their subordinates.” (Al-Jazeera audiotape)

– Feb 11: “All those who cooperate with the Americans against Iraq are hostile to Islam. We stress the importance of martyrdom operations against the enemy.” (Al-Jazeera audiotape)

– Sept 10: “He who wants to learn loyalty, sincerity, magnanimity and courage in support of religion… should follow in the footsteps of (the September 11 attackers upon America).” (Al-Jazeera videotape)

– Oct 18: “We will go on fighting you and we will carry on martyrdom operations. We reserve the right to retaliate… against all countries that take part in this unjust (Iraqi) war, namely Britain, Spain, Australia, Poland, Japan and Italy.” (Al-Jazeera audiotape)

2004

– Jan 4: “The occupation of Iraq is only a link in the chain of evil of the Zionists and crusaders.” (Al-Jazeera audiotape)

– April 15: “I present a reconciliation initiative… to stop operations against all (European) countries if they promise not to be aggressive towards Muslims.” (Al-Arabiya audiotape)

– Jan 19: Threatens fresh attacks against the United States but offers American people a conditional “long-term truce.” (Al-Jazeera audiotape)

– April 23: “I call upon the mujahedeen (holy warriors) and their supporters in Sudan and its surroundings… to prepare to lead a prolonged war against the crusader robbers in western Sudan.” (Al-Jazeera audiotape)

– May 23: Says he masterminded the September 11 attacks and that convicted Frenchman Zacarias Moussaoui had no part in them. (Internet audiotape)

Sept 25: Calls on European countries to end alliance with the United States and withdraw from Afghanistan. (Internet audiotape)2010

Jan 24: Claims botched Christmas Day bombing of US airliner and threatens more strikes on US targets. (Al-Jazeera audiotape).

March 25 : “The White House has declared its wish to execute (Khaled Sheikh Mohammed and his co-accused). The day the United States takes such a decision, it would be also taking the decision that any of you falling into our hands will be executed”…Osama bin Laden has warned Al-Qaeda will kill Americans if the mastermind of the 2001 attacks on the United States, Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, is executed, in an audiotape aired Thursday by Al-Jazeera television.

Kill them all anti-Islam, the United States, America, Bush, Obama, US coalition, US Relief, American Christians, American Friendship, US non-Muslims, in any names whatever, anywhere to reign a Islamic Peace. I can just not tolerate them. Blast them, kill them, slain them, shoot them, torch them, finish them in a word. Allah ho Akbar… –A Jehadi Sermon by Osama Bin Laden.

Bin Laden’s voice was detected regularly until [14 December 2001] by intelligence operatives monitoring radio transmissions in Tora Bora, according to the Pentagon [details]. Since then, nothing has been heard from the al-Qa’eda leader and President Bush has hinted in private that bin Laden’s silence could mean he has been killed. [Telegraph, 12/28/2001]

Osama bin Laden:

A dead nemesis perpetuated by the US government

Osama bin Laden is dead. The news first came from sources in Afghanistan and Pakistan almost six months ago: the fugitive died in December [2001] and was buried in the mountains of southeast Afghanistan. Pakistan’s president, Pervez Musharraf, echoed the information. The remnants of Osama’s gang, however, have mostly stayed silent, either to keep Osama’s ghost alive or because they have no means of communication.With an ego the size of Mount Everest, Osama bin Laden would not have, could not have, remained silent for so long if he were still alive. He always liked to take credit even for things he had nothing to do with. Would he remain silent for nine months and not trumpet his own survival?[New York Times. July 11, 2002]Bin Laden has often been reported to be in poor health. Some accounts claim that he is suffering from Hepatitis C, and can expect to live for only two more years. According to Le Figaro, last year [2000] he ordered a mobile dialysis machine to be delivered to his base at Kandahar in Afghanistan. [Guardian]Peter Bergen: Bin Laden has aged ‘enormously’

This is a man who was clearly not well. I mean, as you see from these pictures here, he’s really, by December [2001] he’s looking pretty terrible.

But by December, of course, that tape that was aired then, he’s barely moving the left side of his body. So he’s clearly got diabetes. He has low blood pressure. He’s got a wound in his foot. He’s apparently got dialysis … for kidney problems. [CNN]

The [December 27, 2001 video] was dismissed by the Bush administration … as sick propaganda possibly designed to mask the fact the al-Qa’eda leader was already dead. “He could have made the video and then ordered that it be released in the event of his death,” said one White House aide. [Telegraph]

Pakistan’s Musharraf: Bin Laden probably dead

Pakistan’s president says he thinks Osama bin Laden is most likely dead because the suspected terrorist has been unable to get treatment for his kidney disease.

[A Bush administration official] said U.S. intelligence is that bin Laden needs dialysis every three days and “it is fairly obvious that that could be an issue when you are running from place to place, and facing the idea of needing to generate electricity in a mountain hideout.” [CNN]

Renal dialysis — talking about hemodialysis — is something that really is reserved for patients in end-stage renal failure. That means their kidneys have just completely shut down. The most common cause of something like that would be something like diabetes and hypertension. Once that’s happened, if you’re separated from your dialysis machine — and incidentally, dialysis machines require electricity, they’re going to require clean water, they’re going to require a sterile setting — infection is a huge risk with that. If you don’t have all those things and a functioning dialysis machine, it’s unlikely that you’d survive beyond several days or a week at the most. [CNN]

The editor-in-chief of a London-based Arab news magazine said a purported will it published Saturday was written late last year [2001] by Osama bin Laden, and shows “he’s dying or he’s going to die soon.” [CNN]

Usama bin Laden has died a peaceful death due to an untreated lung complication, the Pakistan Observer reported, citing a Taliban leader who allegedly attended the funeral of the Al Qaeda leader. “The Coalition troops are engaged in a mad search operation but they would never be able to fulfill their cherished goal of getting Usama alive or dead,” the source said. [FOX News]

A prominent official in the Afghan Taleban movement announced yesterday the death of Osama bin Laden, the chief of al-Qa’da organization, stating that binLaden suffered serious complications in the lungs and died a natural and quiet death. [Welfare State]

Israeli sources said Israel and the United States assess that Bin Laden probably died in the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan in December. They said the emergence of new messages by Bin Laden are probably fabrications, Middle East Newsline reported. [World Tribune]

PARIS, France (CNN) — A report that Osama bin Laden is dead has set off a flurry of denials from U.S., French and Pakistani officials, who say the newspaper report citing French intelligence cannot be independently confirmed.

A Saudi intelligence official, however, told CNN on Saturday that the al Qaeda leader is suffering from a waterborne illness. There have been credible reports that the most wanted man in the world is ill, but there is no intelligence indicating he is dead, the source said.

A senior White House official with access to intelligence reports added that he has made several calls to senior government officials and could not verify the report.

Across the Atlantic, French President Jacques Chirac said the report was “in no way confirmed” and that he was initiating an investigation into who leaked the confidential document to L’Est Republicain. (Watch French reporter sticking to his story — 1:51)

“I was rather surprised to see that a confidential note from the [General Directorate for External Security] was published, and I have asked the minister of defense to start an investigation immediately and to reach whatever conclusions are necessary,” Chirac said after trade talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin and German Chancellor Angela Merkel in Compiegne, France.

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Friend, family weigh in.

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Bin Laden’s brother-in-law, Jamal Khalifa, who was the al Qaeda leader’s best friend when they were university students in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, told CNN that he has heard no report of bin Laden’s death. The Saudi-based businessman has been married to bin Laden’s sister, Shaikha, since 1986.

Khaled Batarfi, a managing editor at the Saudi newspaper Al Madina and who was close friends with bin Laden when they were teenagers, said he remains in touch with bin Laden’s immediate family in Jeddah. Family members said Saturday they had heard nothing to confirm the report, Batarfi told CNN.

Despite the fervent denials, journalist Laid Sammari, who wrote the article, said in a telephone interview that he was confident the classified document was authentic. His article states that Saudi secret service agents on September 4 received reports of bin Laden’s death.

Saudi officials plan to make an official announcement after they confirm the burial site for the al Qaeda leader, Sammari said.

In Pakistan, officials said Saturday that they had no confirmation of bin Laden’s death. On Friday, President Gen. Pervez Musharraf confirmed President Bush’s earlier statement that the hunt for bin Laden is still on.

Al Qaeda was behind the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States that killed almost 3,000 people in New York, Pennsylvania and Washington. The U.S. State Department is offering a $25 million reward for information leading directly to bin Laden’s arrest or conviction, according to the FBI.

The Airline Pilots Association and the Air Transport Association are offering an additional $2 million reward.

Bin Laden’s most recent public message came June 30, when an audio recording was posted on an Islamic Web site. He stated that Abu Hamza al-Muhajer had replaced Abu Musab al-Zarqawi as leader of al Qaeda in Iraq. Al-Zarqawi was killed in a U.S. airstrike earlier in June.

The CIA confirmed the voice on the tape was bin Laden’s.

The al Qaeda leader’s most recent videotaped statement was aired October 29, 2004, on Al-Jazeera.

An image from 1998 shows Osama Bin Laden speaking to selected reporters in the mountains of Helmand province in southern Afghanistan Photo: AP

He said that neither his own advisers in Pakistan nor US intelligence agencies had detected any trace of the al-Qaeda leader since Al Jazeera television broadcast an audio recording of his voice in March.

But even then, unlike on previous occasions the authenticity of the voice purporting to be bin Laden was not confirmed by the CIA.

There have been regular reports of bin Laden’s ill health, notably speculation about his kidneys failing. Mr Zardari said his own advisers believed there was substance to the rumours.

“The question is whether he is alive or dead. There is no trace of him,” he said.

“There is no news. They obviously feel that he does not exist any more but that’s not confirmed.”

Mr Zardari’s predecessor, Pervez Musharraf, similarly suggested that the Saudi terror chief could be dead. But US officials have repeatedly stated that bin Laden could yet be hiding in the mountainous region straddling the Afghan-Pakistan border.

Mr Zardari’s comments came as he sought to reassure the international community that it need not worry over the security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons.

Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, had voiced her fears that they could fall into Taliban hands if the Pakistani government failed to halt the militants’ advance throughout its North West Frontier Province (NWFP). Militants were last week repelled from their positions in Buner, just 60 miles from the capital Islamabad.

Her remarks followed earlier claims to a US Congressional committee that Pakistan was “abdicating to the Taliban” by making peace deals in places like the Swat Valley, where ministers had agreed to introduce Sharia law in exchange for an end to a militant insurgency.

That latest deal is unravelling after the Pakistan army killed 46 Taliban fighters in the space of two days, including two senior commanders in Malakand’s Lower Dir district, in a series of helicopter gunship strikes.

They were called in after the NWFP government said the Taliban had broken the truce deal by pushing beyond the Swat Valley to neighbouring districts like Buner and Lower Dir.

A Taliban spokesman, Muslim Khan, last night warned his fighters would attack government forces throughout the district if the government did not immediately halt its offensive.

No Confirmation about Laden’s Death

Updated: Monday, April 27, 2009, 16:05|| IrishTimes.com|| Last updated on April 29, 2009, 18:15 by Agencies.||

Pakistan’s president Asif Ali Zardari said today that the whereabouts of al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden remained a mystery and there was a suspicion that he could be dead.

Mr Zardari said US officials had told him that they had no trace of the al-Qaeda leader, although they habitually say he is most likely in Pakistan.

“There is no news,” the president said. “They obviously feel that he does not exist anymore but that’s not confirmed, we can’t confirm that.”

Al Jazeera aired excerpts of an audio recording in March in which the speaker’s voice sounded like earlier messages from Bin Laden, who has eluded all efforts to catch him since al-Qaeda carried out the September 11th, 2001 attacks on the United States.

Bin Laden’s 52nd birthday was on March 10th. He is known to suffer from ill-health.

There have been reports that he had died of natural causes in the past, but they have never been corroborated, and security analysts believe intelligence agencies monitoring jihadi websites on the internet would have picked up some chatter. nReuters .

It is difficult to say, whether Osama is dead or alive. Whether he is a good friend of Obama, Karzai, Musarraf or Muslim mass being endangered by the isolation threat out of an Islamist terrorism. But a fun realms that Osama generally prefers breakfast with Zardari, lunch with Karzai and dinner with Obama. And only Allah knows where Osama sleeps at night.

But the reality runs that Ghost Osama is more dangerous than Osama live Laden. Laden is still the prime inspiration of all Islamist terror forces.